Public Safety Committee on April 5th, 2022

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Dr. Kitchen, could you just follow up? You talked about COVID as one of the pockets of misinformation.

Where are some of these other pockets where you see this really starting to foment? What trends are you seeing that concern you?

[Dr. Veronica Kitchen]

Certainly there is the violence we have seen in the COVID context against Asian Canadians and other minority Canadians. We could see that replicated, possibly against Russians or against Ukrainians in Canada.

We could also see various other instances where racialized individuals are being targeted because of the appeal of white supremacy that is in part promoted by Putin's world view, which is certainly that Russia is the correct leader of western civilization. That helps to fuel those right-wing extremists as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

On behalf of members of the committee, and indeed on behalf of all parliamentarians, I would like to thank the witnesses. Collectively, you have literally decades of experience and a very deep understanding of the complexities of these issues. We're very grateful that you have shared your expertise and your insights with us this morning.

Colleagues, we'll now take a short, five-minute break to change panels, then we will resume the meeting.

For those who leave now, thank you so much for being a part of this.

Colleagues, we'll see you in about five minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Colleagues, I now call the meeting back to order. If you could take your seats, I will assume everybody is where they are supposed to be.

With us this hour by video conference is Dr. Ahmed Al-Rawi, assistant professor, Simon Fraser University. I would also like to welcome Dr. Alexander Cooley, Claire Tow professor of political science, Bernard College, and academy adjunct faculty at Chatham House; and Dr. David Perry, president, Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

There will be up to five minutes for opening remarks from our guests, after which we will have two rounds of questions. I'll begin by inviting Dr. Al-Rawi to make an opening statement of up to five minutes.

Sir, the floor is yours.

[Dr. Ahmed Al-Rawi, Assistant Professor, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Russian disinformation in Canada has been an ongoing issue. The Russian government has an ongoing interest in interfering in Canadian politics using a variety of information operations, propaganda and disinformation.

Using publicly available datasets released a few years ago by Facebook and Twitter, I found that Russian trolls were the most invested in targeting Canada, far more than Iranian and other state-run trolls from China and Saudi Arabia were. These information operations were conducted with the use of carefully concealed social media users with the assistance of fake websites as well as news channels like RT, Russia Today and Sputnik.

For example, the Internet research agency, IRA, created fake Facebook pages and purchased ads often targeting Canadians in 2016 and even earlier. Fake websites like peacedata.net that seemed legitimate were also used like to spread favourable messages towards Russia. I also found in 2017 that Russian trolls even promoted a rally in Ottawa against the Liberal government.

In my research, the content analysis of social media messages clearly showed that the ideological position of the Russian government aligned well with far-right groups and individuals in Canada.

In my view, the main reason behind this information operation strategy is to sow division, create tension and confuse people about what is real or fake. For example, the main targets of Russian trolls were Liberals, especially due to their immigration policies, with a focus on attacking Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland. The second target is related to Canadian Muslims, with emphasis on visible minority MPs followed by other targets on issues like refugees, diversity and multiculturalism.

Today and due to the increasing pressure on traditional social media companies, the public activities of Russian trolls have been relatively curtailed, as there is some scrutiny and general awareness. The same applies to the way Russian state news outlets like RT have been flagged as promoters of disinformation and sometimes banned from operating. However, I personally think that the decision of the CRTC, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, to ban RT remains only symbolic and ineffective, because RT can be viewed in multiple other ways in Canada and elsewhere.

We can see today a different information strategy that uses Russian government diplomatic missions as its main means to spread propaganda. For example, the Russian embassy in Ottawa runs its own Twitter account as well as recent Telegram and VK public channels. The embassy has been active in spreading disinformation and promoting the Russian perspective on the events taking place in Ukraine. Instead of heavily relying on RT or Sputnik, the embassy mostly retweets messages from the Russian foreign affairs ministry and other Russian diplomatic accounts and missions from around the world as well as Russia's foreign allies like China.

Also, the embassy frequently posts statements attacking Canadian officials as well as national news media for what it views as biased attitudes towards the war in Ukraine. Any factual reporting on the war is considered fake news, and the term itself is weaponized by the Russian foreign affairs ministry to serve the interest of Putin's regime.

One of the most troubling features of this disinformation campaign by the Russian government is related to the weaponization of fact-checking practices. In a recent tweet, the embassy in Ottawa announced the launch of a new website called WarOnFakes.com, which attempts to give credibility to official Russian propaganda. The website allegedly provides fact-checking services with regard to the war in Ukraine and is offered in five languages: English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Chinese, denoting that the main targeted groups are non-Russian speaking audiences.

Finally, the embassy is trying to create a direct link with the Canadian public that cannot be blocked by the CRTC. For example, the embassy often sends direct messages to Canadians via its Telegram channel and Twitter account. In fact, more than 3,000 Twitter users who retweeted recent messages from the embassy are found to be Canadian users who were further spreading these messages.

Though the official and public focus has been on banning RT and Sputnik news channels, the reality is that Russian embassies are creating their own information ecosystem with the help of fake fact-checking websites like WarOnFakes.

The official Russian disinformation has evolved today to heavily rely on multiple sources, including the social media outlets of these diplomatic missions—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

I would now like to invite Dr. Cooley to make an opening statement for up five minutes.

Sir, whenever you're ready.

[Dr. Alexander Cooley, Claire Tow Professor of Political Science, Barnard College, and Academy Adjunct Faculty, Chatham House, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It's an honour to be able to address the committee.

I would like to focus my remarks on two distinct groups of global and transnational networks that the war has spotlighted and that I believe reverberate back into western societies, Canada included. They also pose some significant policy challenges.

The first you will have certainly heard of and deliberated about, and that is the group of oligarchs. We have seen Russian oligarchs targeted with sanctions by the U.K., Canada, the EU and the U.S. Here, we have acknowledged in some ways that a bet that we made a long time ago has failed, and that is the idea that if oligarchs had access to western stock markets and boardrooms and philanthropic types of circles, then their behaviour would be moderated and somehow they could influence the Kremlin itself into moderation.

We face two challenges with the oligarchs going forward. One is going after their assets and freezing them, and the other one is their reputations. In both of these areas, we also have to contend with service professionals who work here in the west, in the U.K., in the U.S. and in Canada, who enable both of these processes. They take their money, put them into luxury real estate, purchase shell companies and hide them in complex networks of bank accounts, as well as the PR agencies and the reputation management firms and lobbyists who try to recast them, not as politically exposed persons with links to the Kremlin but rather as global philanthropists. This is a challenge across all western societies.

The second group perhaps is less on your radar, so I will focus a little more time on them. That is this emerging community of new Russian exiles that we see the war has created. Certainly, we have seen a steady stream of opposition and journalists go out of Russia during Vladimir Putin's increasingly authoritarian reign, but the dislocations of the last month are truly striking. I would focus on three distinct groups here.

First, hundreds of journalists are fleeing Russia. They are setting up their own networks and channels. We already have a number of distinct Russian independent media outlets that operate from abroad, from the Baltic states or via Telegram channels. I believe they should be supported and openly encouraged because they're the only source of Russian-language independent media out there.

Second, tens of thousands of IT workers, with 50 to 70 this month, possibly up to another 70 next month, have fled the country. They are in places like Georgia, Armenia or Uzbekistan. As the Russian government has sanctioned big tech and declared Facebook undesirable, you have seen a flight of qualified IT workers outside of the country too.

The third group would be hundreds of academics and think tank analysts who have also left the country, who do not want to face the consequences of 15 years in prison for calling out this war. They're also exiled in places like eastern Europe and Istanbul, and they are also looking for new types of affiliations and academic homes.

My suggestion to the committee here is to think about strategies to enhance and strengthen these new networks of exiles as they try to promote independent thought and affect, as much as they can from outside, the disinformation propaganda within the country, and to think about what kinds of policies can be adopted to sort of make us a force multiplier as the Kremlin tries to decouple from the west, to ensure that these independent and critical voices can be encouraged from outside of the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

I would now like to turn to Dr. Perry.

Sir, you have five minutes to make an opening statement. Whenever you're ready, the floor is yours.

[Dr. David Perry, President, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to speak today.

The horrific events we're watching unfold in Ukraine are demonstrating that Russia is prepared to employ its modernized military without provocation in ways that are fundamentally anathema to Canadian interests and values, and that we in Canada find difficult to comprehend.

In response, we have moved with urgency and ingenuity to help Ukraine defend itself and deter further Russian aggression in Europe by strengthening eastern Europe's defences. We should act with similar urgency and ingenuity to ensure that Canada and North America are better defended against potential Russian aggression closer to home. Russia is challenging Canadian and western interests in multiple places around the world and with many different means, including cyber and disinformation activities.

In my comments today, I will focus on the impact of Russia's military modernization over the last two decades, and the increased threat it poses to Canada, the United States and North America. Russian aircraft, ships and submarines can now carry advanced cruise missiles that could accurately hit targets in North America at long ranges, as can other long-range Russian missiles, including hypersonic glide vehicles.

We cannot at present detect and track these threats well enough, nor can we prevent them from damaging targets here in Canada. We need to quickly improve our ability to do both. As a result of the Canada First defence strategy in 2008, and “Strong, Secure, Engaged” in 2017, Canada has been progressively improving our ability to defend Canada over time, including through the purchase of a fleet of modern fighter aircraft, aerial refuelling tankers, surveillance platforms and a modern naval fleet.

I was happy to hear in the last several weeks that the government is moving to further address the defence of the continent through the modernization of NORAD and continental defence. This will presumably involve a new policy framework and a combination of new equipment, the people to operate it, new or enhanced infrastructure training and the other support required to turn that equipment and those people into a useful military capability.

Let me offer some suggestions now for how we can turn this long-evolving commitment to act with our American allies to strengthen the defence of the continent into concrete action, by focusing on the equipment procurement needed to make that happen. However, some of these elements, I think, are applicable to the other activities we might want to consider.

First, defending Canada must be a priority of government. Successive governments have been improving our ability to defend Canada over the last decades and we have been discussing the modernization of continental defence for years, but those efforts have not moved ahead with the urgency required.

As a result, the pace of implementation has fallen short of expectations. Money has gone unspent year after year, and needed equipment projects have been delayed. The war in Ukraine is demonstrating the importance of having a capable modern military at the moment, when Russia or any other military power precipitates an international crisis, not when we in Canada can get around to doing it.

We need to continue implementing “Strong, Secure, Engaged” and move forward on the modernization of continental defence with urgency we have not seen recently. Doing so will require that this be made a top priority of the government, set by the Prime Minister and cabinet and clearly communicated throughout the Government of Canada and all of its department and agencies.

Second, a bigger defence budget is needed now. Canada's current defence spending plans are insufficient to deal with the threats posed by Russia and other powers like China. Our military, like everyone else's, is facing historically high inflation pressures that are exacerbated by procurement delays. We also have lingering maintenance and infrastructure deficits, as well as personnel shortfalls.

Looking forward, continental defence is an unfunded liability that the 2022 budget must address. Beyond our immediate spending requirements, how much we spend on defence sends a signal to both allies and adversaries of our commitment to our own defence, as well as to international peace and security more broadly. NATO's 2% of GDP spending target is an imperfect measures of allies' contributions to collective defence, but it is one that all allies, including Canada, agreed to meet. If we remain unprepared to reach our alliance spending targets, we should be prepared for our allies and adversaries to question our commitment to defence and international peace and security.

Third, and finally, more money is required, but more capacity is needed to actually use it. Canada is in the middle of the largest defence recapitalization effort since the Korean War. This is in large part because we're making up for lost time during the decade and a half following the end of the Cold War, when we invested insufficiently in our forces.

Many of the key combat fleets we operate today, including fighters and frigates, were purchased in the 1980s—which is the last time period when we spent at a 2% of GDP level—and those assets should have been replaced years ago. Today, we're trying to make up for lost time, using a procurement workforce that was cut in half in the 1990s and never fully rebuilt.

Moving our military modernization forward faster will require an increase in the procurement system's capacity, because we have too few people with the right skills at present to manage the projects that are already funded, never mind what may come this Thursday with the additional budget dollars.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we'll now move to the first round of questions. This is a six-minute block and we'll start with Mr. Van Popta.

Sir, the floor is yours.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being with us here today and sharing your knowledge for the benefit of this committee and Canadians.

Dr. Perry, I'll start with you. In 2018, you told the foreign affairs committee at a hearing that “Canada's official position is that the Canadian Arctic is a zone for peace and co-operation.” You added that to increase our chances of realizing that desirable outcome, we would have to bolster our defences to better deter Russia.

That was three or four years ago. What would you say today about Canada's defence capability in the face of Russia's naval and air presence in the north?

[Dr. David Perry]

I'd say that in the intervening time, we haven't done enough to actually close the gap that I was talking about back then. We have programs under way. You mentioned a couple of them. We just saw, a week ago, an announcement about acquiring future fighter aircraft. Those also remain works in progress, and not enough tangible action has been taken to close that gap, so most of that gap or delta with what we can do and what we should be able to do, unfortunately, remains in place today.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I was looking at the mandate letter for the Minister of Defence,Minister Anand, and it says, among many other things, that we will maintain a strong contribution to NATO and work with the U.S. to modernize NORAD.

Would you characterize our contribution to NATO as strong?

[Dr. David Perry]

Our operational contribution to NATO is strong. Our commitment of providing good personnel to what the alliance does has been strong, but we have fallen well short of our alliance commitments toward burden sharing, expressed as a share of our economy that we're devoting to military spending.

For years, we have been well short of the target of 2% of GDP overall going to the military [Technical difficulty—Editor] Now, more than ever, our allies, as well as adversaries, are taking note of those shortfalls.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

If we were to increase our military spending to 2%, as we have agreed to with our NATO allies, what would that look like for upgrading the north warning system? I understand it's still 1980s technology.

[Dr. David Perry]

If we were to move to that threshold of spending, it would allow us to move forward meaningfully with continental defence modernization, which has a number of Arctic elements as part of it. It would allow us to bolster the use and utility of the infrastructure that we have up there, the types of assets that we can deploy into our own Arctic, and provide us with a quite significant increase in our ability to defend Canada as part of North America.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

What specifically should we be looking for in that vein in the upcoming federal budget when it comes to military spending?

[Dr. David Perry]

I'd be looking for details on how the government plans to translate the high-level statement of intent, signed in a letter last August with the United States Secretary of Defense, into specific lines of action to move forward on continental defence, along with a funding plan to make that happen.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

You also stated there was money that had been allocated, but not spent. With the recent announcement of Canada purchasing F-35 fighter jets, is that a step in the right direction? Perhaps you could comment on that.

[Dr. David Perry]

I think it's absolutely a step in the right direction. Over successive years, we've had money set aside to buy new fighter aircraft, but because of delays in that project, that money continued to go unneeded in the immediate term because we hadn't got to the point where we could sign a contract. The announcement last week of a new fighter fleet is long overdue, and a more necessary commitment to improve the defence of the country.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I've heard it said in conversations, and I've read it as well, that there are people in our policy-making community who say that in order for the United States to defend itself, it must also defend Canada.

Is that true, in the sense that there are those conversations going on, and is it true in the sense that the U.S. must defend itself?

[Dr. David Perry]

I think that's true, and it's a risk. It's one that is actually a risk to Canada. If the United States felt that it was in that particular position, it's as much of a benefit to us—not just for our own security, but our position with our closest ally on the continent we share—to be viewed as a partner in national defence, and not as a liability.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

How would you characterize our level of partnership with the United States when it comes to NORAD?

Are we okay?

[Dr. David Perry]

I apologize. I've lost the audio feed.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Okay, I'll just repeat the question.